October 06, 2006

Ah, October; Ah, Surprise

October leaves are lovely
They rustle when I run
Sometimes I make a heap
And jump in them for fun.

Autumn leaves float quietly down
And form a carpet on the ground.
But when those leaves are stepped upon,
Listen for the crackling sound.
Anonymous

October 3, 2006

Dear Friends,

Pardon the Hallmark doggerel, but considering the subject matter and the subjects themselves, it’s a decent fit. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear “the crackling sound” of the leaves that are falling all over the town.

Ah, October . . . clear, crisp days and cool evenings; brilliant amber, gold and red leaves on maple, oak and aspen trees; harvest time; carving pumpkins; the World Series; tailgate parties at college football games; autumn in New York.

Ah, surprise . . . nasty national intelligence estimates make their way into the public domain; Bob Woodward’s third installment about “Bush at War” spins damaging yarns about George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and a host of aides being “in denial"; Iraqi optimism plummets as the insurgency speeds toward civil war; pesky e-mail trails tracking tales of seduction of minors in the House of Representatives; a sorry-and-cynical “hear no evil, see no evil, remember no evil” routine featuring the Speaker, Majority Leader, and others in the House Republican leadership (sic); and Congressman Foley’s, “Oops, I just remembered, I’m an alcoholic -- and -- I was molested” mea culpa, recalling the lyrics from West Side Story’s “Gee, Officer Krupke:”

Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
He's psychologic'ly disturbed!

October surprises, just like the little prize in a Cracker Jack’s box.

And it’s only the first week of the month, and we haven’t even mentioned the bonfire of constitutional timbers – Sayonara! habeas corpus, aka, The Military Commissions Act (S.3901) and Bringing Terrorists to Justice Act (S.3861) as well as The Public Expression of Religion Act (H.R. 2679) which precludes the reimbursement of attorney’s fees in cases where there have been successful challenges to government actions that violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Oh, well. Better than having liberal judges legislating from the bench.

And let’s not forget the resignation of Ohio Congressman Bob Ney just minutes ahead of the arrival of the High Sheriff and posse -- more to follow from Jack Abramoff’s overflowing dance card featuring more invitations to private meetings at the White House than Barney and Miss Beazley combined.

So, let’s begin by asking a few questions to help clarify the confusion that reigns in and rains on the nation’s capital.

Q: What didn’t Speaker Hastert know and when didn’t he first know it?

Q: When did Majority Leader Boehner first become confused about whether he did or didn’t have a conversation with Speaker Hastert about Congressman Foley’s practice of preying on pages?

Q: Why were the appropriate bipartisan committees of the House -- on pages and ethics -- bypassed on this matter and no Democrat informed at any point about Foley’s misbehavior?

Q: To paraphrase CNN’s Bernard Shaw’s question to then presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis: “Speaker Hastert, if you had uncovered any of those e-mails from Congressman Foley to your son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter, how long would it have taken you to wring his neck?”

Q: How many National Security Council meetings were held prior to the invasion of Iraq to consider the pros and cons of invasion and the management of the occupation?

Q: What caused Condoleezza Rice’s renowned “steel trap mind” to malfunction when asked about a July 2001 emergency briefing session on imminent threats from al Qaeda with CIA Director George Tenet and counterterrorism authority Cofer Black?

Q: Do we take Vice President Cheney at his word on this exchange with Meet The Press moderator, Tim Russert, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9-11?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: It was the right thing to do and if we had it to do over again, we’d do exactly the same thing.

MR. RUSSERT: Exactly the same thing?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Yes, sir.

Q: Is the suppression and/or direct misrepresentation of Congressionally mandated reports on the progress of the war in Iraq from the Secretary of Defense an impeachable offense? A civil offense? A criminal offense?

Q: Should a man or woman who admits to fulfilling a mission from God -- seeking the counsel of a “higher father,” e.g. -- serve as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces in a democratic nation that stipulates the separation of church and state?

Now, because we don’t allow “profiling” of any sort – racial, ethnic, religious, political – we won’t dwell on the one thing that all of these actors have in common. That would be unfair, undemocratic and un-Democratic.

And besides, there’s the saga of New Orleans’s Congressman William Jefferson who has given new life to the meaning of the term: cold cash. And he’s on the other team, suggesting that misprision of office is a bipartisan, if not necessarily equally balanced, matter.

While you’re thinking about the answers to these questions, consider this.

These aren’t “surprises.” They are the inevitable by-products of a confounding constellation of factors:

• Having absolute power

• Having it for too long

• Suborning the legislative process

• Consenting but not advising

• Making policy subservient to doctrine

• Doctoring intelligence in the service of policy

• Misleading the stockholders, in the mold of Enron’s Ken Lay or WorldCom’s, Bernard Ebbers, for example

• Choreographing an environment of fear and suspicion that has the country divided at home and disrespected abroad

These “surprises” are also the price paid for ignoring Plato’s dictum -- “The unexamined life isn’t worth living” – regarding the conduct of office and the crafting of policy. And while some hold fiercely to Karl Rove’s notion that the only truth in electoral politics is to “stick to your base” and to hell with everything else, he may have overlooked the important distinction between “optimum” and “maximum” endeavors: e.g., the optimum body temperature is 98.6º, but the maximum temperature can kill you.

Yes, 9-11 was awful, in the full sense of that profligately employed word.

Yes, Al Qaeda and al qaedaism are a real and present threat to the Western world.

Yes, we should not shirk from cutting terrorists off at the knees whenever the opportunity arises.

Yes, we must be vigilant in ways that this country has not needed to be in its lifetime.

And yes, we must be as united as a country of nearly 300 million people from many different cultures can possibly be on the critical questions of national security.

But, no, as Senators Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel like to remind their audiences, these people are not ten feet tall.

And, no, their wish for a caliphate isn’t the same thing as having the capacity to create one.

And, no, it isn’t axiomatic that a caliphate would represent a dire threat to the West, politically, economically or culturally.

And, no, we are not winning the war in Iraq; our presence simply keeps the cap on a full-scale outbreak of civil war; the insurgency is not in its last throes; the government isn’t unified; sectarian conflict grows more deadly by the month; U. S. troops are increasingly vulnerable to an insurgency that can now swim in an ocean of the people; and the military and civilian leadership in-country know those are the facts.

And no, we are not winning in Afghanistan, in fact we are backsliding from what some might call a real example of “cut-and-run;” and, like Iraq, it’s becoming less clear whether more troops would help stanch the reversal of fortune or reinforce the truth of most counterinsurgencies – that the more you seek to protect your own forces, the less secure you become.

And, yes, what this country has needed for the past several years is a President who would say something like this:

“I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”(FDR, first inaugural address, March 4, 1933)

And while it is clear that we won’t hear anything like that between now and January 20, 2009 -- if even then -- it is important to remember that we have a history of national leaders from both major political parties who have had both the inclination and capacity to lead from strength, to unite not divide, to dispatch nonperformers with alacrity and finality, to wrestle with the complexities of governing, and to speak the truth no matter how unpleasant or painful.

It’s time we stopped lowering the bar on our expectations for performance from the elected leaders of this nation, irrespective of whether we share their political convictions.

To paraphrase our friends at the United Negro College Fund: a good democracy is a terrible thing to waste.

Comments

After listening to Sen. Obama on Larry King Live last night I think we may have a person here who can be what we need in this country in terms of national leadership. He is a true statesman as was FDR and he would go a long way toward uniting us.